The “Dune” star also praises his costars Amy Adams and Patrick Wilson: “We were having the time of our life.”

Javier Bardem compares Cape Fear role to No Country for Old Men and Skyfall villains: ‘Hopefully I’m not any of them’

The "Dune" star also praises his costars Amy Adams and Patrick Wilson: "We were having the time of our life."

By Wesley Stenzel

Wesley Stenzel

Wesley Stenzel is a news writer at **. He began writing for EW in 2022.

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June 4, 2026 10:00 a.m. ET

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Javier Bardem in 'Cape Fear'; 'No Country for Old Men'; and 'Skyfall'. Credit:

Apple TV; Richard Foreman/Miramax; Francois Duhamel/Columbia Pictures

- Javier Bardem compares his *Cape Fear* character to his villainous roles in *No Country for Old Men* and *Skyfall*.

- "Well, they are all me and I'm all of them, and hopefully I'm not any of them!" he says.

- The actor also praises his costars Amy Adams and Patrick Wilson: "We were laughing our asses off."

Javier Bardem has played a number of iconic villains — so how will his turn in *Cape Fear* stand out from the rest?

In a conversation with **, the *Biutiful* actor reflects on how his take on the menacing ex-con, who was previously played by Robert Mitchum and Robert De Niro in the *Cape Fear* films, is different from two of his scariest characters: Anton Chigurh from *No Country for Old Men* and Raoul Silva from *Skyfall*.

"Well, they are all me and I'm all of them," Bardem says before adding, "and hopefully I'm not any of them!"

Javier Bardem in 'No Country for Old Men'. Richard Foreman

Bardem considers how his *No Country* antagonist — whom he won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar in 2008 — compares to Max Cady. "Anton Chigurh is a man who does not have feelings," he explains. "It's an accident. It's an accident of fate. It's violence itself showing up with no excuse, no justification, destroying, and then leaving no trace behind and moving on, moving forward."

The actor thinks that his James Bond villain is more comparable to his *Cape Fear* character. "Silva in 007 is more of a man with the need of a personal revenge, which kind of links to Max Cady," he says before noting a key distinction between the two men. "But I guess the thing with Silva in 007 is that he's a megalomaniac. He really makes a big thing around himself and he takes himself way too seriously. When Max Cady does not."

Daniel Craig and Javier Bardem in 'Skyfall'.

Francois Duhamel/Sony

Bardem believes Max is a much more sympathetic character than his previous antagonists.

"Max Cady is a simple man," he says. "He's a Mr. Nobody that made his life through hell and he's here with nothing to lose. And that's a very dangerous person. He has nothing to lose, and one very specific goal that has to do with the family."

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The family in question is the Bowdens, headed by defense attorney Anna (Amy Adams) and former prosecutor Tom (Patrick Wilson). They're parents to Natalie (Lily Collias), Anna's daughter from a previous relationship, and their troubled son Zack (Joe Anders). Despite the turmoil that their characters face, Bardem says that he had a lovely time working with his costars.

"We were laughing our asses off," he remembers. "We were having the time of our life. We get along really well, and we were playing with each other. No matter how far we would like to go, we were there for each other, and we were super supportive of the others' take on the scene, on the characters."

Javier Bardem in 'Cape Fear'.

Bardem says he was particularly excited to work with Adams. "Amy — I've always wanted to work with her since I first knew her work, which was a long time ago. And when they told me she was going to be Anna, I was like, 'Wow! Wow, wow, wow, wow. I can't believe it.' She's such a beautiful artist."

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The *Dune* star was also extremely enthusiastic about the opportunity to work with Wilson. "The first day I saw him, I was like, 'Man, if you knew...The day I saw you in *Angels in America*, the HBO show many, many years ago, I was so in love with your performance,'" he recalls. "'I can't believe that I'm ... And then I've seen you many things after that, obviously, but I can't believe that I'm sharing the screen with you.'"

Bardem believes it would have been "impossible" to rise to *Cape Fear*'s challenging material if he and his costars were less united. "It's tough," he says. "There are some tough scenes, emotionally and physically, and we felt comfortable with each other."

He concludes, "We were buddies. We were colleagues. It was beautiful, really beautiful."

*Cape Fear* premieres on Apple TV on June 5.

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